Always in Our ED
by LillyMayFlower
Summary: What if Dylan died in the wedding inferno, not the boat explosion? A two-parter about Zoe's reaction to losing her best friend, which I wrote before the last two episodes aired, hence why they're not following the events of this weekend! DISCLAIMER - I don't own Casualty
1. Chapter 1

**Part One of something I wrote a little while ago and uploaded to tumblr, after we first suspected something might happen to Dylan in the wedding explosion. It's only very short (the next part is a little longer) but I wanted to upload it on here as it seemed like a good time, after the cliffhanger we were left with last night! I'll warn you now, it sort of made me cry to write it, so a mascara warning is in order!**

Zoe stood in the Peace Garden behind the hospital, holding Dervla's lead so tightly her knuckles were white. The grass was damp: it hadn't long since rained, but this didn't stop her kneeling down in front of a tree, only planted yesterday. Its full height was only about four feet so far, but they all knew it would grow tall and strong, a constant reminder of the friend they'd lost. A plaque, set in the soil at the base of the tree, released the lump from Zoe's throat and she sobbed freely, not caring if there was anyone around.

 _Dr Dylan Keogh – one of the finest doctors we have ever had the privilege to work with. Forever in our memories, and in our ED._

She knew him inside out, and it wasn't fair that his ashes now lay around the roots of this tree. She tried to remember all of their sarcastic remarks, the conversations that had made her smile every day, but there were too many. The times she'd emptied his pockets of change for chocolate, midway through horrendous night shifts. The long nights spent together on the boat, splitting a bottle of wine over films they'd already seen twelve times before.

Kneeling on the grass, Zoe nearly folded in two, crying so hard it hurt every fibre of her body. Why? Why him? He deserved to live, the people of Holby deserved to have a doctor like him in their hospital. He had an instinct most of the team couldn't understand, a sense of knowing when something was right. They'd learned not to question his judgement and diagnoses – there was no point, he was always right. Difficult patients had never phased him, he was like a horse with blinkers, blind to the situation outside of the symptoms.

Zoe felt a furry head on her shoulder. She turned and wrapped her arms around Dervla, nestling her face in her impeccably clean fur. She'd been bathed the night before the wedding, when an ivory ribbon had been tied in her collar. Zoe had the ribbon tied around her wrist, it still smelled of the boat. And him. The closest friend she'd ever had. Dervla moaned, a noise like crying, and Zoe knew she was hurting too. Dylan had adopted her as a puppy, they were stronger soulmates than any humans she knew. Zoe wanted to tell her that it would be okay, that one day they'd wake up and feel better. But she couldn't lie to herself. There would never be a day when she wouldn't walk into the ED and expect to see him escaping Connie's eagle eyes with a cup of coffee, and usually a second one for her. She'd have to buy her own coffee every day now. She tangled her fingers in Dervla's fur, never wanting to let go because this feeling hurt like hell, and it would never go away.


	2. Chapter 2

**I had to change the description for the story, sorry - when I wrote this, I'd speculated that Dylan might die in the wedding reception inferno, not when the boat exploded (don't ask me why, it was just my immediate thought.) It made more sense for me to write about Zoe's grief and her being able to see all his belongings, which obviously wouldn't work if the boat had exploded! Sorry to mess with your heads a little bit - I only realised on proofreading this chapter what a mistake I'd made! Hope you like it anyway :)**

Zoe always knew she would have to go back to the boat. She told Max it was because she'd left some stuff there, months ago, when she'd moved out.

She'd kept the key in her purse since they'd heard the news, waiting for the day she'd be brave enough to go back to let herself into the boat. She'd brought Dervla with her: it would be worse to see the boat without his dog in it. Dervla padded slowly around the living room and kitchen, sniffing delicately at everything as she passed it, before lying behind the door as she always had done when she was waiting for Dylan to come home. Zoe looked away.

It was exactly how he'd left it on the morning of the wedding – of course it was, she thought, no-one else had a key and it wasn't as if he had any family to come and sort through his belongings. Zoe hadn't bet on it being quite this hard to see all of his things, laid out and completely untouched.

It was impossible to see everything normally. The fact that he wasn't there, that he'd never be there, meant it was impossible to not see him in all of it. He was there in the immaculately clean plates, neatly stacked next to the sink. He was still holding the mug on the bookcase, with a dark, sticky ring of old coffee settled in the bottom. There was a medical journal open on the sofa, post-it notes stuck all over and neat notes carefully printed in the margins. Zoe's eyes filled with tears, seeing his handwriting again. Identically sized capital letters, made with smooth pen strokes. She put the pens on the table into her bag, and made a mental note to pick up the journals on her way out.

She crept across the room, pushing herself to open the door to his bedroom. She'd obviously never been in there when they lived together, unless you counted the rare times he'd overslept and she'd had to barge in to wake him. Or the time he'd had the flu, so badly she wouldn't let him go to work and left the hospital in her lunch break to find him still in bed, only just awake.  
"And you wanted to go to work this morning?" she'd said.  
"All right, point proven," he'd replied, his throat croaking. She'd left a fresh cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal by the bed before returning to work.

The air in the room was stale, but she couldn't bring herself to open the window. The scent of his aftershave lingered on the air. She closed the door behind her and leant on it, taking in the whole room. It felt wrong to take a photo, she wanted to remember it all as it was, right now. No, that was wrong. She wanted to remember the room, the whole boat, with Dylan in it. She walked over to the bed and before she could stop herself, she was curled up on top of the duvet, crying inconsolably.  
"You selfish ass, Dylan Keogh," she whispered angrily, in between sobs. "Why did you have to leave? Why would you ever think I'd be ready for this?" She rubbed her eyes furiously, knowing her mascara would be a mess. Looking down at her thumbs, which were completely clean, she realised with a pang that she hadn't even remembered to do her make-up this morning. Everything was different now. She was even wearing flat shoes: the echo of her heels sounded too much like a hospital corridor, and she half-expected him to appear from around a corner to remind her that her shoes were too loud.

Max knew all along that Zoe wasn't going back to the boat to collect her things. He made his own way to the boat, a little while later, and let himself in – Zoe hadn't fully closed the door behind her. Dervla groaned, unappreciative at having to move.  
"Zoe?" he called quietly. There was no response, the boat was silent. He made his way to Dylan's closed bedroom door. He knocked softly, then opened it. Zoe hadn't moved, she was still curled up on the bed, silent tears cascading down her face.  
"He's gone, Max," she said, sounding so empty and wounded. "He's really gone, and I'm never going to see him again."  
"But you will always remember him," Max said, helping her to sit up. "And there will come a day, where you can wake up and know that he might be gone, but he will always be there for you." He wrapped his arm around Zoe's shoulders and looked into her eyes. They were red and still overflowing with tears. Her eyelashes glistened. "He'll be there when you buy a coffee, when you're walking the dog, and he'll definitely be there to tell you what to do at work. He was a brilliant doctor, but so are you, and you'll continue to be, even if he's not there, looking over your shoulder and making some sarcastic remark that you could really do without," he said, raising a weak smile from Zoe. He wiped her eyes with his thumbs. She sniffed, and rested her head in the crook of his neck. Dervla crept into the room and jumped immediately onto the bed. Zoe laughed a little.

"Do you remember when he sent her in to spy on us?" she said, hiccuping slightly as she smiled through her tears.  
"How could I forget?" Max replied.  
"And the way he'd leave six voice-mails consecutively, each of them more annoyed, until eventually he'd just come and find me."  
"And all of the times you took his money for chocolate instead of mine," Max said, a broad grin on his face. "These are the things you'll carry with you, Zoe. He will always be there, and you know that right now, he's probably sitting on a thunder cloud, commanding it to rain so that his tree won't keel over, and getting really grumpy because you're not just getting on with your day."  
Zoe looked up to the ceiling. "Bugger off Dylan!" she said, wiping her eyes. "Maybe I don't want to get on with it!" She took Max's hand again, squeezing it tightly.

"Is there anything you want to take with you today, or do you want to come back?"  
"I'll always want to come back," Zoe said, rubbing her free hand across her face. "Because he'll always be in here. But there's only a couple of medical journals that I want to take tonight. He wrote in them."  
"You don't have to explain, it's okay," Max said, looking at Dervla, who had jumped off the bed and come to put her head in Zoe's lap. Zoe smiled although the grief was swallowing her whole. He used to love this, she thought.

"Right, come on Stinky, let's go home," she said, stroking Dervla's ears.  
"I'll assume that was aimed at her," Max said, before kissing between Zoe's eyebrows and helping her stand up.  
"You can assume whatever you like," Zoe said, taking a last, long look at the room. It wouldn't be long before she would be back again, she was sure.


End file.
